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III. The International Court of Justice
2. THE JURISDICTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
2.5. Jurisdiction on the Basis of Treaties
2.5.3. Specific Treaties

¤ LaGrand Case
(Germany v. United States of America)
Judgment of 27 June 2001

[pp. ] 36. In relation to the jurisdiction of the Court, the United States, without having raised preliminary objections under Article 79 of the Rules of Court, nevertheless presented certain objections thereto.

Germany bases the jurisdiction of the Court on Article I of the Optional Protocol, which reads as follows:

"Disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and may accordingly be brought before the Court by an application made by any party to the dispute being a Party to the present Protocol."

Germany contends that the

"proceedings instituted by [it] in the present case raise questions of the interpretation and application of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and of the legal consequences arising from the non-observance on the part of the United States of certain of its provisions vis-à-vis Germany and two of its nationals".

Accordingly, Germany states that all four of its submissions

"are covered by one and the same jurisdictional basis, namely Art. I of the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes of 24 April 1963".

37. The Court will first examine the question of its jurisdiction with respect to the first submission of Germany. Germany relies on paragraph 1 of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, which provides:

"With a view to facilitating the exercise of consular functions relating to nationals of the sending State:

(a) consular officers shall be free to communicate with nationals of the sending State and to have access to them. Nationals of the sending State shall have the same freedom with respect to communication with and access to consular officers of the sending State;

(b) if he so requests, the competent authorities of the receiving State shall, without delay, inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State is arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or is detained in any other manner. Any communication addressed to the consular post by the person arrested, in prison, custody or detention shall be forwarded by the said authorities without delay. The said authorities shall inform the person concerned without delay of his rights under this subparagraph;

(c) consular officers shall have the right to visit a national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention, to converse and correspond with him and to arrange for his legal representation. They shall also have the right to visit any national of the sending State who is in prison, custody or detention in their district in pursuance of a judgement. Nevertheless, consular officers shall refrain from taking action on behalf of a national who is in prison, custody or detention if he expressly opposes such action."

[pp. ] 40. Concerning Germany's claims of violation of Article 36, paragraph 1 (a) and (c), the United States however calls these claims "particularly misplaced" on the grounds that the "underlying conduct complained of is the same" as the claim of the violation of Article 36, paragraph 1 (b). It contends, moreover, that "to the extent that this claim by Germany is based on the general law of diplomatic protection, it is not within the Court's jurisdiction" under the Optional Protocol because it "does not concern the interpretation or application of the Vienna Convention". The United States points to the distinction between jurisdiction over treaties and jurisdiction over customary law and observes that
"[e]ven if a treaty norm and a customary norm were to have exactly the same content," each would have its "separate applicability". It contests the German assertion that diplomatic protection "enters through the intermediary of the Vienna Convention" and submits:

"the Vienna Convention deals with consular assistance ... it does not deal with diplomatic protection. Legally, a world of difference exists between the right of the consul to assist an incarcerated national of his country, and the wholly different question whether the State can espouse the claims of its national through diplomatic protection. The former is within the jurisdiction of the Court under the Optional Protocol; the latter is not ... Germany based its right of diplomatic protection on customary law ... [T]his case comes before this Court not under Article 36, paragraph 2 of its Statute, but under Article 36, paragraph 1. Is it not obvious ... that whatever rights Germany has under customary law, they do not fall within the jurisdiction of this Court under the Optional Protocol?"

41. Germany responds that the breach of paragraph 1 (a) and (c) of Article 36 must be distinguished from that of paragraph 1 (b), and that as a result, the Court should not only rule on the latter breach, but also on the violation of paragraph 1 (a) and (c). Germany further asserts "that 'application of the Convention' in the sense of the Optional Protocol very well encompasses the consequences of a violation of individual rights under the Convention, including the espousal of respective claims by the State of nationality".

42. The Court cannot accept the United States objections. The dispute between the Parties as to whether Article 36, paragraph 1 (a) and (c), of the Vienna Convention have been violated in this case in consequence of the breach of paragraph 1 (b) does relate to the interpretation and application of the Convention. This is also true of the dispute as to whether paragraph 1 (b) creates individual rights and whether Germany has standing to assert those rights on behalf of its nationals. These are consequently disputes within the meaning of Article I of the Optional Protocol. Moreover, the Court cannot accept the contention of the United States that Germany's claim based on the individual rights of the LaGrand brothers is beyond the Court's jurisdiction because diplomatic protection is a concept of customary international law. This fact does not prevent a State party to a treaty, which creates individual rights, from taking up the case of one of its nationals and instituting international judicial proceedings on behalf of that national, on the basis of a general jurisdictional clause in such a treaty. Therefore the Court concludes that it has jurisdiction with respect to the whole of Germany's first submission.

[p. ] 43. The United States does not challenge the Court's jurisdiction in regard to Germany's second submission. Nor does it as such address the issue of the jurisdiction of the Court over the third submission concerning the binding nature of the Order of the Court of 3 March 1999 indicating provisional measures. It argues, however, that this submission is inadmissible (see paragraphs 50 and 53-55 below), and that the Court can fully and adequately dispose of the merits of this case without having to rule on the submission.

44. Germany asserts that the Court's Order of 3 March 1999 was intended to "enforce" the rights enjoyed by Germany under the Vienna Convention and "preserve those rights pending its decision on the merits". Germany claims that a dispute as to "whether the United States were obliged to comply and did comply with the Order" necessarily arises out of the interpretation or application of the Convention and thus falls within the jurisdiction of the Court. Germany argues further that questions "relating to the non-compliance with a decision of the Court under Article 41 para. 1 of the Statute, e.g. Provisional Measures, are an integral component of the entire original dispute between the parties".

Moreover, Germany contends that its third submission also implicates "in an auxiliary and subsidiary manner ... the inherent jurisdiction of the Court for claims as closely interrelated with each other as the ones before the Court in the present case".

45. The third submission of Germany concerns issues that arise directly out of the dispute between the Parties before the Court over which the Court has already held that it has jurisdiction (see paragraph 42 above), and which are thus covered by Article I of the Optional Protocol. The Court reaffirms, in this connection, what it said in its Judgment in the Fisheries Jurisdiction case, where it declared that in order to consider the dispute in all its aspects, it may also deal with a submission that "is one based on facts subsequent to the filing of the Application, but arising directly out of the question which is the subject-matter of that Application. As such it falls within the scope of the Court's jurisdiction ..." (Fisheries Jurisdiction (Federal Republic of Germany v. Iceland), Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1974, p. 203, para. 72). Where the Court has jurisdiction to decide a case, it also has jurisdiction to deal with submissions requesting it to determine that an order indicating measures which seeks to preserve the rights of the Parties to this dispute has not been complied with.

[p. ] 46. The United States objects to the jurisdiction of the Court over the fourth submission in so far as it concerns a request for assurances and guarantees of non-repetition. The United States submits that its "jurisdictional argument [does] not apply to jurisdiction to order cessation of a breach or to order reparation, but is limited to the question of assurances and guarantees ... [which] are conceptually distinct from reparation". It contends that Germany's fourth submission

"goes beyond any remedy that the Court can or should grant, and should be rejected. The Court's power to decide cases ... does not extend to the power to order a State to provide any 'guarantee' intended to confer additional legal rights on the Applicant State ... The United States does not believe that it can be the role of the Court ... to impose any obligations that are additional to or that differ in character from those to which the United States consented when it ratified the Vienna Convention".

47. Germany counters this argument by asserting that

"a dispute whether or not the violation of a provision of the Vienna Convention gives rise to a certain remedy is a dispute concerning 'the application and interpretation' of the aforesaid Convention, and thus falls within the scope of Art. I of the Optional Protocol".

Germany notes in this regard that the Court, in its Order of 9 April 1998 in the case concerning the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Paraguay v. United States of America), held that

"there exists a dispute as to whether the relief sought by Paraguay is a remedy available under the Vienna Convention, in particular in relation to Articles 5 and 36 thereof; and ... this is a dispute arising out of the application of the Convention within the meaning of Article I of the Optional Protocol concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes of 24 April 1963" (I.C.J. Reports 1998, p. 256, para. 31).

Germany asserts also that its fourth submission arises under principles of State responsibility, according to which Germany is entitled to a "whole range of remedies" as a consequence of the particular violations alleged in this case and that these questions of State responsibility "are clearly within the ambit of the Optional Protocol".

48. The Court considers that a dispute regarding the appropriate remedies for the violation of the Convention alleged by Germany is a dispute that arises out of the interpretation or application of the Convention and thus is within the Court's jurisdiction. Where jurisdiction exists over a dispute on a particular matter, no separate basis for jurisdiction is required by the Court to consider the remedies a party has requested for the breach of the obligation (Factory at Chorzów, P.C.I.J., Series A, No. 9, p. 22). Consequently, the Court has jurisdiction in the present case with respect to the fourth submission of Germany.

[pp. S.O. Parra-Aranguren] 14. The majority of the Court states:

"The dispute which exists between the Parties with regard to this point essentially concerns the interpretation of Article 41, which is worded in identical terms in the Statute of each Court (apart from the respective references to the Council of the League of Nations and the Security Council). These difficulties have been the subject of extensive controversy in the literature. The Court will therefore now proceed to the interpretation of Article 41 of the Statute." (Para. 99 of the Judgment.)

15. As the Judgment acknowledges, the dispute between Germany and the United States on this point arises out of the interpretation of Article 41 of the Court's Statute. Therefore, it is not a dispute arising out of the interpretation of the Vienna Convention as required by the Optional Protocol, which is the basis for the jurisdiction of the Court in the present case. Consequently, in my opinion, the Court does not have jurisdiction to decide Germany's third submission. For this reason I have voted against operative paragraph 128 (1), (2) (c) and (5) of the Judgment.